It’s been a busy last few months since I last regularly posted here. I’ve started writing for a few other hobby blogs, launched a couple web apps with my brother, launched some major projects at work…the list goes on. Life flies by when you get busy, and it’s just zoomed right by the last little while. Sometimes it goes by so fast that if you don’t take that time to slow things down, or you don’t experience anything else to change your momentum, you never get a chance to stop and think. Lucky for me that busy-ness got a couple breaks and I’ve had a chance to re-focus.
I took a week off of work a little while ago and used some of this time to catch up on some reading. One of the books I picked up was How Successful People Think. It was a great little find I stumbled upon (I was actually in the bookstore to get a copy of Into the Wild – another great book with lots to learn from). A key takeaway for me in How Successful People Think was that thinking is hard work and it takes practice. Practice and focus.
Also in the last little while, I’ve gone to see a couple concerts – Pearl Jam and U2 – two epic shows that were pretty epic for someone like me who has grown up listening to their music. I love going to rock shows in large arenas. There’s nothing quite like the energy you get when the lights go out, or some intro music starts up letting everyone know the show’s about to start, and then the band takes to the stage and the crowd goes crazy. When you soak in that kind of energy, you can’t help but feel inspired. You see what these musicians are achieving, you live through the experience, and you realize this is their life, this is what they do, they reach the heights of their potential and in following that passion they affect hundreds, thousands, millions of people.
Put this all together and that’s what I’ve been able to re-focus on – the realization that there are a lot of things that you could be doing with your time, but to make the most of the possibilities you have to really embrace it. You have one shot at living your life (or at least *this* life depending on your beliefs), and each passing day is one more day that goes by in this one shot.
So with that, I’ve started to revisit my list of goals. I had an old list of 101 Things to Do in My Lifetime, and I’ll be looking it over and doing a little more focused thinking to come up with a newly updated, revised and refreshed list – go check it out! In the meantime, here’s a quote to for a little extra encouragement, and a video memory to keep the new momentum going.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. – Teddy Roosevelt
